Hacker News Reader

Next time I’m at the zoo, I’ll run this by the zebras to see what they think.

:) I’m being sarcastic but it seems self evident to me that human cognition is a unique treasure on this planet and—while it’s true that ants and octopus and other creatures do some amazing things—-they’re not even close to us. We can agree to disagree but I’m just psyched about the psyche.

View on HN

While I agree with you, I think, having cognition is not black and white. There are animals with great cognition skills especially among predators. Our brains are essentially anticipation machines capable of predicting the future — a trait uniquely advantageous when hunting other animals. We just happen to have specialized on this trait to the extreme (and otherwise lack good sensory organs or impressive innate weapons).

Whenever this topic comes up I have to think about this octopus who escaped an aquarium. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inky_(octopus)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com